The Storm

Look where you’re going, man, or you’ll have us by the lee! Where the hell are you running her off to?” The burly mate grasps the spokes of the big wheel, and puts forth all his strength to assist the weary helmsman in heaving it down.

They are off Cape Horn. Midnight has passed and the murderous blackness of the night is slit at times with livid gleams that rise astern, and hover, then sink with a sullen harsh roar beneath the uplifted stern, only to be followed by others.

The straining helmsman snatches an occasional nervous glance over his shoulder at these dread monstrous spectres. It is not the foam-topped phosphorescent caps he fears; it is the hollow blackness that comes beneath. At times as the ship plunges, the binnacle light flares up, striking a reflected gleam from that moving mass, and showing the curved, furious living walls of water poised above his head.

The storm grows fiercer, and hungry winds howl a dreadful chorus aloft. Occasionally comes the deep hollow booming of the main lower topsail.

The man at the wheel strains desperately. The wind is icy cold and the night full of spray and sleet, yet he perspires damply in his grim fight.

Presently the hoarse bellow of the mate’s voice is heard through the gloom:

“Another man to the wheel! Another man to the wheel!”

It is time. Unaided the solitary, struggling figure guiding the huge plunging craft through the watery thunders is unable to cope longer with his task, and now another form takes its place on the lee side of the groaning wheel, and gives its strength to assist the master hand through the stress.

An hour passes, and the mate stands silently swaying nearer the binnacle. Once his voice comes tumultuously through the pall:

“Damn you! Keep her straight!”

There is no reply, none is needed. The mate knows the man is doing his utmost; and knowing that, he struggles forward and is swallowed up in the blackness.

With a tremendous clap the main top sail leaves the ropes and drives forward upon the foremast, a dark and flickering shadow seen mistily against the deep, sombre dome of the night.

The ship steers madly in swooping semi-circles, and with each one she looks death between the eyes. The hurricane seems to flatten the men against the wheel, and grows stronger.

The night becomes palpably darker, and nothing now can be seen except those foamy giant shapes leaping up like moving cliffs, then sweeping forward overwhelmingly.

Time passes, and the storm increases.

A human voice comes out of the night. It is the mate standing unseen close at hand, hidden in the briny reek.

“Steady!” It rises to a hoarse scream. “For God’s sake! Steady!”

The ship sweeps up against the ocean. Things vast and watery hang above her for one brief moment. . . .

The morning is dawning leaden and weary—like the face of a worn woman.

The light strikes through the bellying scum overhead, and shows broken hills and valleys carven momentarily in liquid shapes. The eye sweeps round the eternal desolation.